So, please, indulge me as I hitherto invent a new genre of literary criticism and thrust it upon your unwitting and uninterested eyes. I call it a "pre-review review". I hear your teeth grind as you call me a "wally" and slap the back of your own neck in the hope you'll hit that "off-button" sweet-spot. Why not simply call it a "preview", like a sensible person?

As long as the public continues to accept the assurances of the rich that we have to suffer so that they don't have to, the bitterness created will continue to create divisions between ethnic and religious communities that should be working together to destroy zero hour contracts and ensure proper funding for the NHS.

The novel, set in a dystopia of the future, is a love story between loner artists, Ailinn and Kevern, and is a dark turn for a writer who has made his name by making others laugh. But behind every joke has not the impetus for its telling been borne of something more desperate and tragic?

UK ministers always seem to preface what they say about the crisis in Gaza by acknowledging Israel's right to self defence against attack. I agree with them about that. Actually, the Palestinians have the right of self defence too. The point is that neither can credibly be invoked to justify the carnage that is unfolding.

It is fair enough when one needs to write quickly in a personal message but this attitude needn't find its way into our press, our literature or our own writing. Call me the grammar police but whatever you do, just make sure your comment on this post makes sense.

My first reaction to this news was that I should read something substantial about one of the biggest conflicts in human history; perhaps Max Hastings huge new book on the subject, or some of that famous poetry that everyone is supposed to read in British schools. What about the extensive reports that all British newspapers are featuring about WW1?

Everything's a marketing opportunity. Our existence is only a chance to prove how brilliant we are, and to congratulate our mates for their brilliance too... The fact is, the more we PR our lives online, the more isolated we become. With every 'Ibiza. Done' status update we move further and further away from meaningful relationships with our families, friends and lovers.

During his Etonian days, long before the publication of his 1941 essay, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, George Orwell claims to have developed particular socialistic tendencies...

With a budget that achieves the exact opposite of the objectives the Chancellor has set himself we are all wondering what will come out of the Ministry of Truth next. A Localism Act that centralises planning perhaps; or a Big Society that cuts benefits for the poor and vulnerable?

In this post-Snowden age, where privacy it seems is all but dead, a reinterpretation of Orwell's Big Brother and the omnipresent surveillance state certainly has a lot to offer. But this production at the Almeida is over-engineered, with high concept overwhelming the text, creating an inconsistent, uneven show.

Take a look in HMV and tell me what you see. For while the conveyor belt of the craven book publishing world rolls on, the art world preens and lumbers in search of the next concept, and our once glorious world of music has had its guts ripped out by the internet. Yet the musician persists in his efforts to have the cloth-eared hear his songs.

That evening, at the piano in my Islington flat, the notes that came out were from Jura. I can't really explain how or why, I know it probably sounds barking mad. It was like the island was calling me saying 'I'm here, I've always been here, so come if you need me'.

The appeal of Russell Brand's revolutionary ramblings lies in the paradox at the heart of this idea. Like every other ideology that came before it, negative liberty appears to transcend every other ideology.

One such author and journalist, writing at the same time as a young Ralph Miliband, was highly critical of aspects of England and Englishness. The English 'are not gifted artistically' he wrote. The English 'are not intellectual'. They have, he wrote a 'world-famed hypocrisy'.

We need a much larger, open public debate to determine the balance between security and liberty in a digital age. But too many sensible opponents are disposed to calling surveillance measures 'Orwellian'... regular refrain to our most celebrated dystopian nightmare is not helpful.

It's perhaps appropriate that the biggest news this month, a month that marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of George Orwell, is a story about privacy. What would Orwell, whose dystopian novel 1984 painted a nightmare vision of a society under constant surveillance, have to say about the current scandal engulfing the U.S. and British security services?

The world has changed, didn't you get the memo? We have become digitised, and we live in a world now defined by IP address statistics and pictures of what you had for breakfast. Social media in its current form has changed the way we live our lives, and perhaps we are so far down the rabbit hole it is too late to turn back.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers visiting Scunthorpe wasted a wonderful opportunity to shed light onto a world we don't often see on television and examine some of the reasons behind this. Instead they choose to reinforce some highly damaging opinions held about Britain's poor and unemployed people.

Having gone to a comprehensive school in an area of considerable social depravation I can speak for talented teachers who were specially selected for their ability to maintain control and to enthuse their students with imaginative and inspired ideas.